There is a pair of active AE22's up for collection nr Birmingham. These are sealed cabinet design which suits your slightly compromised listening position. Sealed cabinets lose a little bass extension but what is there is better defined. The plus side is better mid range speed and response. AE22's set out to better the NS10 (which you may have heard of) philosophy of not sounding great to listen to but reveal lots in the mid range. With the exception that AE22's actually sound good to listen too as well.....

Forgot to mention - I use a pair of passive Tannoy Reveal 6 monitors that I picked up second-hand for £80. Along with one of those T-path amps you get for £30 on eBay, they're about as good as it's possible to get in my room; any more, and it'd be a total waste. I've tried a mate's Genelecs in here, and they really don't sound appreciably different - certainly no difference in detail - so I remain convinced that with the room as the limiting factor, you're better off saving your money.

Forgot to mention - I use a pair of passive Tannoy Reveal 6 monitors that I picked up second-hand for £80. Along with one of those T-path amps you get for £30 on eBay, they're about as good as it's possible to get in my room; any more, and it'd be a total waste. I've tried a mate's Genelecs in here, and they really don't sound appreciably different - certainly no difference in detail - so I remain convinced that with the room as the limiting factor, you're better off saving your money.

I also subscribe to the room thing. I feel like £600 is a lot to spend if the room won’t be ideal.

But for pure enjoyment a decent 6” set of monitors is a good shout for most home rooms, and not too physically huge (8”s are big!).

Brands/models do have their own identity but unless you have very strong feelings about certain things then it’s probably not worth getting too bogged down in the specifics to start off with. Up to you of course.

I’ve got a mix of commercial and home made trapping in my room and it makes a gigantic difference. It’s literally the difference between not hearing, and hearing certain frequencies in the low end anyway.

I’m going to be the bearer of bad news and suggest foam tiles do very little for bass. At least the typical 2” thickness foam tiles don’t do much.

They will affect mids and highs, but low end requires thicker treatment. I don’t have any acoustic panels thinner than 4” in my room, most are 6”, and I have thicker in corners. Even then I still have bass issues.

Most home rooms, especially brick built rooms, are going to have bass issues. But some DIY bass trapping will help if you have space for it. Or if you have the money, talk to GIK.

I’m going to be the bearer of bad news and suggest foam tiles do very little for bass. At least the typical 2” thickness foam tiles don’t do much.

They will affect mids and highs, but low end requires thicker treatment. I don’t have any acoustic panels thinner than 4” in my room, most are 6”, and I have thicker in corners. Even then I still have bass issues.

Most home rooms, especially brick built rooms, are going to have bass issues. But some DIY bass trapping will help if you have space for it. Or if you have the money, talk to GIK.

I have massive horrible ugly bass traps in the corners of my room. still isn't great. Foam tiles are only good for early reflections and preventing flutter echos (still important)

I’m going to be the bearer of bad news and suggest foam tiles do very little for bass. At least the typical 2” thickness foam tiles don’t do much.

It does very little, but in small rooms it can be just enough to cross over from "unmanageable" to "just about usable". It certainly was in mine

If it works for you then great. Generally it's thought thinner foam panels don't do a lot below 200hz - it could be you had issues higher than the bass range which they have helped with.

The other thing people who are just starting out generally don't think about with room treatment is decay time. I know I spent years completely oblivious to this myself anyway.

If you only treat higher frequencies, then deeper ones will ring out for longer. So an extreme example would be covering a whole room top to bottom in 2" foam. That's going to kill most high and midrange reflections, but will do very little for the bass. So what will happen is your bass frequencies will still bounce around the room and last longer, thus skewing your perception of bass even further, feeling like bass is more prominent and bass transients last longer than they actually do.

This is a study done by GIK, so of course it pimps their own product. But this isn't even their deepest trap by a long shot, and is compared against foam bass traps.

To illustrate the point, here are the waterfall graphs, which show frequency and decay time.

The foam in question is (16) 17″ x 24” acoustic foam bass traps, and the GIK traps are (8) GIK 244 traps that are 24″ x 48″. Look at the peak in empty just below 70hz and how the foam compares to the bass trap, especially in decay time. The foam does a great job of higher frequency decay time but comparatively does much worse in below 200hz.

Really getting something perfect isn't going to be possible, and a typical home room will always be a compromise.

But if a person wanted to get into recording and intended to use speakers (not just headphones) I think building a bunch of 4" traps (there are loads of how to posts all over the internet) will make a really noticeable difference. If I could start again, I would've done that first before buying any additional plugins. As it was I did the same as many people did and bought 'fun stuff' over acoustic treatment for a long time.

Just get some decent headphones?Seems a cheaper solution overall and there is no issue with the room reflection and all that other jazz.

The Bigsby was the first successful design of what is now called a
whammy bar or tremolo arm, although vibrato is the technically correct
term for the musical effect it produces. In standard usage, tremolo is a
rapid fluctuation of the volume of a note, while vibrato is a
fluctuation in pitch. The origin of this nonstandard usage of the term
by electric guitarists is attributed to Leo Fender, who also used the
term “vibrato” to refer to what is really a tremolo effect.

If you're going for mixing headphones I would recommend the Shure SRH1440. Really useful in an untreated room and the open back style does give some approximation of listening with monitors. I also use the Equator D5's for monitor reference and for the price they are very good.

Based on the Presonus Eris E8s I got for the Helix, the E5s might be a decent bet. Not too pricey, front ported, adjustable bass cutoff and an "acoustic space" switch to adjust bass response if they're near a wall or in corners.

Yamaha HS5's or HS7's depending on space or if it's really small IK Multimedia iLoud Monitors. I have a pair of the HS7's and the iLoud's and they are both great.

I've just got a pair of ilouds and they are very good, especially for the size.

Something that is botherimg me though is an audible whistling noise, which I assume is from the in built Bluetooth. Sounds like a quiet Spectrum 48k loading a game. It's not too intrusive, but easily noticable with nothing coming through the speakers. Have you noticed this on yours?

They sound good, if it's normal I'll probably keep them, but don't want to do so if it's a defect on mine.

Forgot to mention - I use a pair of passive Tannoy Reveal 6 monitors that I picked up second-hand for £80. Along with one of those T-path amps you get for £30 on eBay, they're about as good as it's possible to get in my room; any more, and it'd be a total waste. I've tried a mate's Genelecs in here, and they really don't sound appreciably different - certainly no difference in detail - so I remain convinced that with the room as the limiting factor, you're better off saving your money.

Forgot to mention - I use a pair of passive Tannoy Reveal 6 monitors that I picked up second-hand for £80. Along with one of those T-path amps you get for £30 on eBay, they're about as good as it's possible to get in my room; any more, and it'd be a total waste. I've tried a mate's Genelecs in here, and they really don't sound appreciably different - certainly no difference in detail - so I remain convinced that with the room as the limiting factor, you're better off saving your money.

I must say this thread has been super helpful...Thanks to all for your advice.

I ended up with some Genelec 8010s; purchased mainly for their very small footprint. I’m now entering a new rabbit hole; learning about sampling and now actually recording my own music, for once.

Elektron Digitackt arrived, with a Digitone incom8ng

Excellent choice! I bought a pair of Focal Alpha 50's recently as one of my Silver 5L monitors suffered a small child/football injury and had to go off for repair. The Focals were utterly wonderful, very well detailed and lovely bass, but just too much for my tiny space. Happily the repair bill for my monitor is £60 and so I'll be back to full sound soon.

Yamaha HS5's or HS7's depending on space or if it's really small IK Multimedia iLoud Monitors. I have a pair of the HS7's and the iLoud's and they are both great.

I've just got a pair of ilouds and they are very good, especially for the size.

Something that is botherimg me though is an audible whistling noise, which I assume is from the in built Bluetooth. Sounds like a quiet Spectrum 48k loading a game. It's not too intrusive, but easily noticable with nothing coming through the speakers. Have you noticed this on yours?

They sound good, if it's normal I'll probably keep them, but don't want to do so if it's a defect on mine.

Nope. Mine are whisper quiet. Is it interference from another source?

Is this the noise?

I only have Bluetooth enabled when I listen to Spotify via my iPad - there's a bit of noise (go to end of YouTube video when guy uses an iPhone) when I engage Bluetooth but when the music plays you don't hear it. When I'm recording the spears are wired and Bluetooth is off.

Fret, is it possible to turn off the Bluetooth entirely? I only ask as I use a Denon amp with my passive monitors (hardwired connection) and there is a difference in the sound if I turn the Bluetooth receiver on the amp off entirely.

Fret, is it possible to turn off the Bluetooth entirely? I only ask as I use a Denon amp with my passive monitors (hardwired connection) and there is a difference in the sound if I turn the Bluetooth receiver on the amp off entirely.